Fascinating article today in the Wall Street Journal talking about computer science students in colleges outsourcing their programming assignments to Eastern Europe and India. Is this phenomena all that new though? Even in analog-only times some students have paid others to do homework. Even now, some people pay tutors to do students’ homework.

I have been doing a lot of thinking on plagiarism education recently. I want to make sure we hold students accountable only for what we have made clear and what we have taught them to be ethical and appropriate. For instance, if we don’t teach what plagiarism is and isn’t, how can we make sure students aren’t simply confused when we think they are cheating.

Many teachers give the “don’t cheat shpiel” at the beginning of the year, but is that really enough? Is a 50-page guidebook too much? What is just right when it comes to educating students on academic dishonesty?